Father Figures
by Harkpad
Summary: Clint thought he knew what a father figure was. Turns out he was operating without all the information. (Minor Clint/Coulson) (Warnings for mentions of past child abuse) (from a prompt at avengerkink)


**A/N: Thanks** to dysprositos for wonderful help and beta. Also, thanks to the prompter - this came from a prompt at avengerkink, but I can't find the prompt anymore and so I can't link to it. The idea that maybe Harold Barton wasn't Clint's biological father and that the man who is came looking for him after the Battle of New York, is not mine. It was a fantastic prompt and I had fun running with it. Warnings for mentions of child abuse.

* * *

Natasha spotted him first.

"Stark, can you pull up a camera outside the building and get a snapshot of the civilian milling around out there?" she asked as soon as she stepped out of the elevator. Clint, Tony, and Phil were watching a basketball game and eating pizza, and Tony didn't even look at her as he replied.

"Yeah, but I don't _want_ to take pictures of the civilian milling – wait. What?" he said.

Clint turned around to look at Natasha. It _was_ an odd request. Phil straightened immediately, as if he could hear the mission-tone in her voice.

She was tucking her hair up into a ponytail and shucking her coat on the chair behind the couch, so she didn't meet anyone's curious eyes. "There's a guy out there, and I've seen him at a bunch of our stuff," she answered, and finally looked up to meet Phil's gaze. "He reminds me of someone and seems suspicious."

She didn't give much away, but Clint had a distinct feeling that this was somehow about him. "Familiar how? An old enemy kind of familiar?" Clint asked as he scooted over on the couch to make room for her. She had apparently just come back from one of her 'I-need-to-get-the-hell-away-from-all-these-men' kind of trips because she pulled a bottle of purple nail polish out of her pocket and waved it in front of him. He grinned.

"Just pull up the camera on the west side of the tower, park bench across the street, blond older guy – get me a picture. I'll do the research," she said, and pointed at Clint's feet.

He gave a clap and leaned over as Phil groaned. "What, Phil? There's such a thing called polish remover if I get called out for SHIELD." He pulled his socks off and wiggled his toes. "I had a shower an hour ago, Nat. They shouldn't stink too badly."

She pulled his feet into her lap and looked back at Stark. "You get it?" she asked.

"Yep," Tony replied, and his voice was tight.

Clint looked up at the screen, but Tony had put the basketball game back on.

"I'll take care of it after Clint's pedicure," she said lightly, and Clint leaned back against Phil with a sigh of contentment. He enjoyed watching the game while Natasha painted his toes; she had said she'd take care of it, so she'd take care of it. She'd let him know if she needed backup.

"I need to talk to you," Natasha said two days later as they lay panting on a mat in the gym.

"Forty-seven minutes," Phil called from where he was sitting on a bench with his laptop. He liked to work on reports while they sparred in the background. Said it grounded him or something.

"That's good," Clint said. "Right? We haven't done forty-seven in a while."

"Clint." She sounded worried, and Natasha never sounded worried. Controlled, tight, angry, exasperated – those were some of her favorite negative emotions, but worried? Clint thought maybe the last time she was worried with him might have been the day he brought her in. Worried wasn't in her repertoire.

He looked up at her and nodded. "Let me shower first?"

He took six minutes flat to clean up and get to the conference room, because Natasha was worried.

"His name is Brian Edward McGraw and he's 5"10 and 175 pounds. He was born in 1954, so he's sixty years old."

They were sitting in a conference room on the same floor as the gym, and Phil had shown up with protein shakes for both of them. They sipped them as they sat and looked at the photo displayed on the screen.

"I've been looking into him for a few days, and he's not an enemy. He doesn't even have a record. He's a physics professor, actually." Natasha's voice was unusually soft, careful in a way that she normally wasn't. Like she was trying to cushion something.

As Clint stared at the photo on the screen, he had a weird feeling, like he was in a rollercoaster climbing a hill, but he didn't remember getting on. He was looking at a guy who was sitting on the park bench outside the side entrance to the Tower, drinking a cup of coffee and holding a tablet. He was dressed in crisp khaki pants and a navy blue sweater, and the sweater brought out his eyes.

He had kaleidoscope eyes that looked like they might be green, but maybe they were blue. His blond hair was cut in an oddly longish style for a guy his age, like maybe he was growing it out so he could do the old-guy ponytail thing, but hadn't gotten that far yet.

Clint kept looking back at his eyes.

Then it clicked. "He looks like me."

"An older version," Phil agreed, leaning into Clint's shoulder in a subconscious show of support.

"I wondered about mad scientist time travel at first, actually," Nat said with a smile. "He looks a lot like you. Minus the mouth and chin."

"I've got my mother's mou—" Clint started, but he stopped, shutting his mouth a little too hard.

"Natasha?" Phil said, "Who is he?"

"Besides a physics professor?"

"Yes."

She sighed and switched slides. Clint drew a short breath. It was a photo of a young man standing on the dingy bottom step of an old farmhouse, holding a glass of lemonade and laughing.

He looked like he could have been a teenaged Clint's twin; he had his head tucked down the same way Clint did when he laughed.

The resemblance was undeniable.

A young woman also stood on the steps of the house. There was a toddler in her arms, and she was smiling down at him.

That smile.

Clint stood and walked over to the screen.

"That's my mother," he whispered. He caught himself reaching out to touch the picture, brushing his fingers across his mother's face. He didn't have any pictures of her, but her smile radiated in his memory, and seeing her hair brought back memories of a peach shampoo he hadn't smelled since he was a boy. "And that's Barney in her arms. Nat. Who _is_ this guy?"

"Dr. Brian Edward McGraw grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and moved to Iowa City for college when he was eighteen," she said, as if she were reading a report. "The summer before he went to college, he worked on his aunt and uncle's farm in Waverly, Iowa. Eight months after he left for college, you were born. He's been following the Avengers ever since the battle and has been at every press conference you attended in the last month. He's tried to do research on you from home. He hasn't gotten very far, of course."

Clint's hand dropped from the photo and he turned to the table. His knees weren't working so well. Phil noticed, and pushed him into a chair.

"We'd have to do a DNA test," Phil said, and he ran his hand over Clint's hair, brushing it down protectively.

The look on Natasha's face would have been priceless on any other day. She actually looked sheepish. "I might've already stolen a sample and had it tested," she said, looking at Clint.

Her eyes answered the question before he could ask.

He looked back up at the young man in the photo. He was laughing. Clint didn't remember his own father ever laughing. He stood again and went back to the photo. "I always thought I was just an odd mix of them. Barney looks just like my dad. I hardly remember my mom. I figured it was her I took after. I never even thought – "

"Clint," Phil said, and Clint wondered what kind of hysteria was in his voice to make them talk to him like he was a spooked horse.

"She couldn't tell me. My dad would've killed her if he found out."

"McGraw was a kid. He probably never knew," Phil said. "He probably saw you on TV, heard your name, saw the similarities and went digging."

Clint sucked in a sharp breath and turned back to Natasha. "What does he want? Does he want money? A chance to meet the two famous scientists here on the team?" It had to be something. This was - this was bullshit, that's what this was. This guy, showing up now, stalking him.

Bullshit.

Clint stood and pushed the chair roughly back from the table, ignoring the clatter as he stormed toward the door. "He's not going to get it, whatever he wants. He can go fuck himself, that's what he can fucking do." He felt hot, like he'd been sitting next to a roaring campfire for too long, burning but not burned. Phil and Nat called after him as he left, but his ears were roaring, like the hearing aids were giving too much feedback.

He yanked them out as he stalked down the hallway.

Clint had a couple hidey holes in the Tower that Phil and Natasha didn't even know about, so he went for the smallest one. All he could hear in his head was his father's voice – shouting, growling, and throwing a bottle at the living room wall, splashing booze across the wall and onto the yellowing carpet, hollering at Clint to _clean this shit up_. He heard sirens, heard a knock on the door of the farmhouse, heard Barney's voice talking to police officers about their parents.

Clint hugged his knees to his chest in the small utility closet, ignoring the broom handle he knocked against the wall. He tugged on his hair, feeling remembered anger radiating from his red-haired, green-eyed father. He could still hear him yelling: 'worthless, useless, stupid, stupid, stupid, brat, sissy.' –The epithets roared around Clint, filling the darkness with rage.

Tears seeped from Clint's eyes, and he ground his teeth against it, but it didn't stop them. He was crying, and he didn't know how to stop. The picture Nat had showed him swirled in his head, the neat man in khakis and a sweater sipping from a Starbucks cup. Harold Barton probably never owned a sweater that nice in his whole life, and he for goddamned sure never wore a pair of pressed khakis, never sat calmly and soberly reading on a public bench.

"Fuck!" Clint growled, and he slammed his fist against the closet wall. The images of Harold Barton and then Brian McGraw and then Harold Barton and then Brian McGraw swirled until they slowed, like they were spinning down the drain of a sink, and then they were gone, and Clint was left sitting in the darkness with damp cheeks.

Phil, who apparently _did_ know about this hiding spot, was sitting in the hallway waiting for him when Clint finally climbed to his feet and opened the closet door. He sighed and signed, "Sorry for the freak out."

Phil smiled and reached for Clint's hand, pulling it to his chest for a moment. He let go and signed, "I think you deserve at least one. Better now?"

Clint sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, considering Phil's question. "Yeah." They clasped hands and Phil led them back to an elevator and up to their floor. He pulled Clint into their living room and pushed gently so that he fell onto their plush couch. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Phil tapped his shoulder, so he looked up. "Tea?" Phil signed, and Clint said yes before closing his eyes again. A few minutes later he felt Phil sit down next to him. He opened his eyes, sighed, and reached into his pocket for his hearing aids. Phil stopped him.

"Leave them out if you want," he signed. "I don't mind,"

Clint nodded and sipped his tea. It was peppermint with a hint of honey, his favorite.

"Natasha wants to know if you want her to send him away. Let him know we figured it out, but tell him to go home." Phil's face was impassive, and Clint could tell he was trying to stay neutral. If he was _trying _to stay neutral, he clearly _wasn't, _which was about as unusual as a worried Natasha. Phil was always happy to let Clint know exactly where he stood on things concerning Clint's well-being. This was clearly new territory for both of them.

"It would be easier that way," Clint answered. He signed slowly, thinking carefully as he went. "But I have to talk to him."

"He's just watching. You don't have to do anything."

Clint sighed. "He's my biological father, Phil. He's curious about me, and like you said, he probably didn't know I existed before the Invasion. I'll talk to him."

Clint had done death-defying tricks with arrows and flames, had put other performers and himself in pretty serious peril night after night from the age of fourteen until eighteen, and then he'd supported himself in the cold shadows of the mercenary trade, but agreeing to talk to his biological father seemed like the most intimidating thing he'd ever done. He didn't sleep well, despite the warmth of Phil next to him.

The next morning, Clint tugged on his favorite hoodie. He went digging through a dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of grey fingerless gloves. He tucked a knife into the waistband of his jeans and slid one into his right boot. Phil gave him a hug, reminded him that he'd be waiting in the lobby if he needed anything, and told him not to be annoyed if Natasha was closer than that keeping an eye on things.

Clint didn't mind.

McGraw was on the bench again by nine, drinking a coffee and writing on a pad of paper this time. Clint surveyed him from across the street, trying to see – well, he wasn't sure. A father? A threat? A curiosity?

He didn't know what he was looking for, so he gripped his own coffee tightly and crossed the street.

"Uh, are you Brian McGraw?" He kind of wanted to slap himself for sounding like such a loser. Sounding like a loser wouldn't help make a good impression, which Clint found himself wanting very badly.

As soon as McGraw's eyes fell on Clint, they widened and he stood up hastily, his pad of paper falling to the ground. Clint leaned over and picked it up for him, handing it to him hesitantly.

"Yes," McGraw said, and he placed the paper on the bench behind him and turned back to Clint. "You're – you're Clint Barton."

McGraw sounded nervous, but his voice – a kind tenor - washed through Clint with a force that made him step back a bit. He took a deep breath to steady himself and nodded. He couldn't find his own voice, though.

"I-I knew your mother, I think. Mary?"

Clint had not heard his mother's name spoken aloud since the ironically sunny day he and Barney stood at her graveside and listened to the pastor rattle off platitudes that Clint no longer even remembered. Clint liked the way Brian McGraw said her name. He made it sound pretty.

Clint blinked and looked up at McGraw, who was looking at Clint as if he was afraid Clint might suddenly run away, so Clint blew a shaky breath out and nodded. "You stayed in Waverly for a summer," Clint said. "I remember your aunt and uncle, actually. They were nice – gave me and my brother a sweatshirt every fall. Told us they bought 'em on trips."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Clint wanted to add that not everyone was nice to the two small Barton boys, he wanted to add 'oh-by-the-way my dad was an abusive asshole and how could you have left me there,' but he didn't. He took another deep breath and willed the angry seven-year-old in himself down for now. "You don't live in New York," he said instead.

"No. I live in a small college town near Cleveland, Ohio. I teach."

Clint felt like he was riding a bull at a country bar, and like he was in the middle of a bad country song for that matter. He couldn't think of anything else sociable to say. He was just hanging on tight now, and McGraw would have to lead.

"You're an Avenger," McGraw said. "That's amazing."

Clint just shrugged. "Yeah. Life is pretty weird."

They stood in awkward silence for a moment, then McGraw smiled the smile of trying to calm someone down, and he picked up his paper and sat down on the bench. Clint followed.

"You're probably wondering why I'm hanging around, huh?"

"Not really. I got the main parts."

"You knew my name and that I'd been in Waverly before you were born," McGraw said, and then looked at his hands. "I was only there that summer." He paused and looked back at Clint. "How did you know those things?"

Clint rubbed a hand across his face. "I live with Tony Stark and am part of a not-so-secret government agency." He shrugged. "A teammate realized you were stalking our press conferences and then hanging around the Tower, so we did some digging. Figured out a few things."

"I guess you think I'm crazy," McGraw said quietly. "Hell, some days I'm pretty sure I'm crazy. I don't mean to cause trouble, Clint," he said, and Clint's heart raced again when he said his name. "I knew your mother, and I have an idea, but I don't know if it's true, and it's pretty crazy. So I've been watching you, trying to get the nerve to come find you and talk to you, but this stupid bench is as far as I've managed to get." He sounded embarrassed.

Clint looked over at the Tower. The gleaming silver skyscraper was such a contrast to the images of Waverly, Iowa running through Clint's brain right now. Thoughts of his mother were so out of place here. "Look," he said, blunt. "My best friend's a spy and she managed to get a DNA sample from one of your damned coffee cups, and we ran the test."

There was a sharp intake of breath. "You did? Am I? I – I wasn't sure."

Clint chuckled and looked over at McGraw, who seemed a little pale. "Have you looked in a mirror lately?"

McGraw smiled. "When I saw your picture after the Invasion last year, my – my partner jokingly said you looked like my kid if I ever had one. Then I saw your name underneath and thought, 'no fucking way,' and left it alone." He paused. When he spoke again, he was quiet. "I heard an interview where you mentioned Waverly, and I stopped breathing for a whole minute, just listening to your voice. Mark was listening with me and said, 'you know, he sounds like you, too,' and I shook for twenty minutes, remembering your mom and trying to do the math in any way that would make it impossible. I couldn't."

Clint pulled his arms tight to his chest. "I was too little to hold onto that kind of secret for her, so she never got a chance to tell me. She died when I was seven."

"My aunt told me about the car accident," McGraw said. "She'd told me Mary had a boy the spring after I was there. I think my aunt knew your mom and I were involved. She wouldn't confront me with it, though, and I _never_ put two and two together."

Clint was surprised at the clear self-recrimination coming off of McGraw in waves, and he didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do with his own little flares of hot anger that kept jumping around his chest. There was a pregnant silence, and Clint tore the lid of his coffee cup. His heart was beating wildly, and his knee was jittering so hard it might fall off, and the silence stretched, threatening and dark. He stood. "Look, uh. I gotta go for a bit. I – I just. I need to go."

McGraw looked surprised, but he nodded and stood. "Okay," he said, and it sounded so sad to Clint.

Clint didn't know what to do with that right now, though. His mind had blanked out and he just nodded and left. He crossed the street without looking back, and the next thing he knew he was on the range with hearing aids out and his bow in his hand, firing shot after shot after shot.

He didn't stop until he felt less like he was going to explode at the seams, and then he just stopped long enough to switch the setup. He kept shooting, Harold Barton's scathing voice echoing in his head.

The lights flickered twice. Clint dropped his bow and turned around to find Phil standing in the doorway with a bottle of blue Gatorade and a towel. He held them out. Clint sighed and moved to the equipment locker and quickly stored his bow and quiver. He turned to Phil and signed, "I freaked out again. Probably spooked him off."

Phil handed him the bottle and towel, and Clint took them and took a long swig while Phil just watched.

Clint tucked the bottle under his arm. "He's probably gone."

"No," Phil signed with a smile. "I might've caught him before he could go."

"Caught?" Clint raised an eyebrow.

Phil looked at the ceiling and then back at Clint with a wink. "Well. I might've asked him nicely to stay while you worked through your freak out."

"Stay where?" Clint had a funny feeling. Phil didn't answer, just pointed up at the viewing box for the range and shrugged. McGraw was standing there talking with Natasha.

Oh god. "You introduced him to Nat already? What the hell were you thinking?"

Phil's eyes fucking _sparkled_. "She's part of your family. I figured it was good to get it out of the way."

Clint paused and let the idea of family hover for a minute; he had no idea how he even defined family anymore. It had never meant the same thing to him that it meant to Phil, but somehow Phil's definition had edged Clint's off to the side over the past few years.

Maybe finding out how Brian McGraw defined family would be a good idea.

Phil moved closer and put his hand on Clint's arm for a moment. "You've been down here almost two hours. Why don't you get a shower, and if you still aren't ready or if you don't want to talk to him anymore, you can at least say goodbye."

Clint ran his hand over his face. "What if I don't want to say goodbye?" The word just sounded wrong.

Phil stepped closer, looked at Clint like he was trying to figure him out. "Then don't say goodbye. Order some takeout and get him to stay for dinner. We can all hang out with you if you don't want to be alone with him right now."

"He might not want to stay."

"Maybe. But you might be surprised."

Clint nodded and sighed. He was all sweaty and gross, so he just pulled Phil's hand to his mouth and gave it a quick kiss before he stepped away. "I'll shower," he signed, "And meet you guys up at our place."

"Are you sure?" Phil asked, and Clint knew he was asking about more than just whether Clint wanted to see McGraw again.

"Yeah," he answered, walking away. "Like you said, we might as well get shit out of the way. Make sure he can run if he wants. Besides," he called. "I don't think our place is going to be a problem."

Twenty minutes later Clint keyed into their apartment to find McGraw and Phil on the couch. Their Siamese cat, Scout, was stretched out on McGraw's lap.

"Hey," Clint said as he walked in. "Looks like the cat approves."

McGuire laughed, and Phil and Clint both did a double take at the sound. Clint smiled, and said, "I see you've met Phil."

"It's been a pleasure."

Phil stood. "I'll leave you two alone for a bit. I thought I'd order dinner, if you can stay, Mr. McGraw."

"Call me Brian," he said. "And sure. If it's okay with Clint." He looked up with a furrowed brow.

Clint shrugged. "Definitely. Sorry for bailing on you earlier."

McGraw looked at Phil and then back at Clint with a sheepish grin. "I get it. I've been sitting on a park bench for a month."

Phil smiled and said, "Do you like Mediterranean food? There's a place we like that does a good sampler spread."

They all agreed, and soon Clint and McGraw were alone again. "Do you want a drink?" Clint asked. "We've got some beer, or I think there's a bottle of wine of some sort laying around. Or tea. I always keep a jug of tea."

"Tea sounds good."

After getting the drinks, he sat down in the easy chair across from McGraw.

Clint took a long look at McGraw. He didn't have a weathered face; his skin was smooth, except for clear laugh lines around his eyes. His hands weren't calloused, either, and he was definitely built smaller than Clint. Clint always imagined the word father alongside the word imposing, and this guy didn't fit. He was almost unassuming.

His eyes were definitely Clint's, and he fixed them on Clint intently. "I'm not exactly sure what we do now," he said, and then looked down at his hands. "I mean. You and I are biologically related, but that's it. You know?"

Clint liked the way he spoke. His voice wasn't soft, really, but it was careful. "Yeah. I don't know, either," he replied.

"Can I ask a personal question?" McGraw said.

"Sure."

"How did you lose your hearing?" He said it quietly, like he knew the answer was going to be hard.

For a second, Clint thought about lying. He didn't want to do that, though, so he just went with vague. "I had a…incident as a kid, and then an accident in an op a few years ago made it worse."

"An incident?" McGraw asked.

Clint sighed. "My dad was an asshole," he said, and an image of his father looming over him with a face red from yelling crashed into Clint's head. "More than an asshole, really. He hit us, and once he hit me so hard it caused some serious damage." Clint looked up and McGraw's eyes had hardened, and his jaw had tightened.

He stood and moved to the large window that looked out on the city. When he spoke, he didn't look at Clint. "I remember when I went off to college after that summer, I used to daydream about your mother. I knew Harold was a jerk, and I dreamed about getting my degree and then going back and offering to take her away from him, along with your brother."

He stopped, and Clint closed his eyes and imagined McGraw swooping into Waverly with a physics degree and khaki pants and sweeping his mother and Barney away from the crappy life there. He imagined the woman in the picture he'd seen yesterday laughing and raising Barney and him with a loving father who could hold a job down, in a safe place and with plenty of food.

It was a nice image.

"Of course, though," McGraw continued, his gaze still on the city spread below, "Life happened and I got swept up in college, and that idea faded pretty quickly. Mary would be fine, I thought, and I didn't know about you." His voice was a whisper, now. "I'm sorry."

Clint stared at the lines of McGraw's back and tried to conjure up some of the anger he'd felt earlier, on the range.

It wouldn't come.

Clint sighed and stood up, moved to stand near the window, too. "You realize that there's no reason for that. You didn't know. You couldn't know _how big_ of an asshole he was, and unless your aunt told you I might be yours, I've got no room to need an apology from you."

McGraw turned and looked Clint in the eyes, and his voice was flooded with sincerity. "I _swear_ I didn't know. It never occurred to me, and I never went back. Mary and I only – we only slept together once, I was eighteen, and I figured we were safe. I should've known, though. I should've figured it out then."

Clint looked away with a wry chuckle. "I'm not going to tell you what I was doing when I was eighteen, Mr. McGraw, but I can guarantee that I was like every other eighteen year-old out there when I say I couldn't see past my own nose. There wasn't any reason for you to figure it out when you were eighteen." He folded his arms and stared back at McGraw. They were face to face and exactly the same height, and Clint held his gaze until he nodded.

"Brian," he said, and his eyes never left Clint's.

Clint blinked. "What?"

"My name's Brian and I figure if anyone should use it, it's you."

Clint tested it out. "Brian." He pulled in a shaky breath and tried it out again. "Brian. Okay. Thanks." He stepped away from the window and pulled Scout into his arms from where she was sitting on the couch watching them. He rubbed her ears. The moment was charged, and he felt like he had mud in his throat. It took a couple swallows to get it to go away. "You want a tour of the tower?" he asked, once he could speak. He looked up at Brian, who was watching him carefully.

Brian blinked, like that was the last question he figured Clint would ask. "What?"

"I figure there's a little time before dinner shows up, and I could show you some of the cool parts."

Brian nodded slowly and a grin spread across his face. "Yes, that would be amazing."

"Okay," Clint said, "And I think Bruce had something to do with physics in a former life. I bet you guys would get along."

Brian tried to answer, but he clearly got the words stuck in his throat, and he coughed. "Okay," he finally managed. "I'd love to meet him." He followed Clint after Clint dropped the cat back on the couch, and they stepped into the elevator together.

Clint couldn't hold back his grin. He was showing his father his home and was going to introduce him to his friends.


End file.
